Sustainable by nature, driven by design

Led by our interest in valuing local side-stream raw materials while being close to our customers, Symrise Pet Food has built sustainable development into our strategy from the beginning.

More recently, we have committed ourselves to advancing the fight against climate change, by reducing the environmental footprint of our products throughout their life cycle – from selecting and sourcing raw materials to producing, packaging, and shipping our high-value pet food ingredients.

This sustainable journey aims to create a positive change for people, pets, and the planet. By sharing the responsibility to create sustainable solutions and establish effective standards for the pet food industry, we can contribute to greater progress for everyone. Read on to learn how!

Our sustainability journey

A 1987 United Nations report defined sustainable development as “a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In support of this principle, Symrise is clear in our ambition to be a sustainable and future-oriented business.

The pet food industry faces immense challenges. Feeding a growing pet population with a limited supply of raw materials, meeting pet parents' expectations for natural, ethical, transparent products, and working within increasing regulatory and health constraints all place added strain on prospects for success. These stressors are compounded in the global context of preserving resources and biodiversity, working toward energy transition, mitigating global warming, managing water, and promoting human social development.

Symrise Pet Food takes on the sustainability challenge with a systems approach based on four pillars: Footprint, Innovation, Sourcing, and Care, initiated by Symrise within the entire Group.
Our carbon-reduction program leads our global and cross-functional campaign to achieve sustainable growth. Meanwhile, local initiatives all over the world bring to life our enduring commitment to the planet, our people, and the communities in which we work.

Our approach
and objectives

A sustainability strategy built on four pillars: Footprint, Innovation, Sourcing, and Care

Symrise systematically orients our strategy toward achieving sustainable growth, with four key pillars underlying the sustainability agenda across our entire business.

By focusing on Footprint, Innovation, Sourcing, and Care, we link our economic goals with our everyday responsibilities to the environment, our employees, and society in general.

FOOTPRINTINNOVATIONSOURCINGCARE

Minimizing our environmental footprint all along the value chain

Achieving our ecological footprint targets requires that we execute these priorities:

  1. Improving energy efficiency and water stewardship in our industrial facilities, and applying high sustainability standards for all our new sites 
  2. Reducing our wastes and increasing their valorization by up to 90% 
  3. Purchasing green electricity and/or installing renewable energy supplies on site
  4. Achieving reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in line with Paris Agreements, throughout our value chain

Enhancing our products’ positive social and environmental impacts

We firmly believe that the major global challenge of sustainable development is an essential driver of innovation and a crucial factor in meeting our customers’ expectations. This is why we use our eco-design tool every day to develop and bring to market new, more sustainable products with less impact on the environment.

Maximizing sustainability for our supply chain and raw materials sourcing

Our sustainable-sourcing keywords are:

  1. THE CLOSER THE BETTER: To minimize environmental impact by reducing the need for transportation, we work with dependable local suppliers operating close to our production facilities around the world.
  2. SECURE: Through platforms such as Ecovadis and Sedex, we connect with reliable, sustainable suppliers, who must sign the Symrise Suppliers Code of Conduct signifying their commitment to ethical trade and human-rights principles. This ensures that together we contribute to the ethics, reliability, and transparency of our industry’s upstream activities.
  3. VALUATION: Recovering waste and side-stream raw materials is part of our DNA. We will continue to make this a priority through our Circular Economy approach to business.

Improving the well-being of stakeholder communities

We care about people, not only striving to ensure that employees are safe and healthy, and feel good in the workplace, but also extend this care to the communities where they live. We prove our respect for labor standards, human rights, the environment, and business ethics by authorizing Sedex Members Trade Audits (SMETA) for our sites worldwide.

Our low-carbon program

Designing new solutions and production processes that significantly reduce our CO2 impact

Symrise has committed to:

Be carbon positive

(0 CO2 net emission)
from Scopes 1 & 2 by 2030*

Reduce by 30%

CO2eq emissions
from Scope 3 by 2030*

*vs 2020

To achieve our commitments, we will address the 3 Scopes as a whole, with both global and regional strategies involving all departments.

This target will enable us to comply with the Paris Agreement's scenario of +1.5°C global warming.

87%

of our CO2 emissions derive from raw materials we use

It's time to stand up and tackle climate change!

One of the world's biggest challenges stems from the human activity that continues to cause an exponential increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in our planet's atmosphere. Just as we all share responsibility for the problem of climate change, we can all be part of the solution. Symrise Pet Food accepts this challenge, demonstrating our ardent support for an effective worldwide response with our own sweeping low-carbon transition strategy. Here we highlight its main drivers.
 

Learn more about climate change

Primary initiatives for reducing our carbon emissions

SUSTAINABLE SOURCING

purchasing better with selected local suppliers who are sustainability-oriented

ECO-DESIGN

reshaping our portfolio with our eco-design matrix, targeting less carbon-intensive raw materials and ingredients

HIGH MANUFACTURING STANDARDS

upgrading existing sites, and applying exacting environmental standards to all new sites

SMART DELIVERIES

optimizing logistics and packaging in concert with customers

Prioritizing energy efficiency, emissions reduction, and water savings

With the aim of achieving climate neutrality by 2030 on Scopes 1 and 2 of the Paris Agreement, we affirm our commitment to manage the impacts of energy use, CO2 emissions, and water management in day-to-day operations for current and new projects.

Attaining our ambition requires monitoring our facilities, raising awareness, globalizing best practices and standards, and significant investment in less resource-intensive equipment.

The eco-design matrix: a tool for more sustainable products

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) evaluates the environmental performance of a product throughout its value chain.
 
Symrise Pet Food's eco-design matrix helps improve the environmental impacts of our products throughout their life cycle, from sourcing through manufacturing, packaging, and logistics – all the way to the customer.*

This tool enables us to compare data on the environmental footprint of our entire portfolio, across seven impacts and at each of the four main life-cycle stages.
 

*The LCA methodology guidelines of ISO 14044 and the European Commission's Pet Food Footprint Assessment Group were followed.

LEARN ABOUT OUR PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE

Read more on Appet!zer blog

Life cycle assessment: how to measure pet food environmental impact

Read more on Appet!zer blog

4 reasons why using alternatives to meat raw materials in pet food palatants is a winning option

With the eco-design matrix tool, we’ve found a new driver for innovation: We are now able to select ingredients and design products taking into account not only functionality and economic performance, but also environmental impacts throughout the life cycle. Aurélie de Ratuld, Global CSR manager for Symrise Pet Food

Our local initiatives

Conserving resources

While sustainable objectives are common to all Symrise Pet Food sites, the challenges, priorities, and means of achieving resource conservation will vary from site to site.

Take a look some of our initiatives!

Teaming up to save water in Latin America

Our teams in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia involved all employees in setting up new routines that significantly reduced their water consumption, allowing them to save 100,000 m3/year at those plants compared to standard plants.

Partnering locally to valorize waste worldwide

More than 90% of wastes from our sites in Cervera (Spain), Mondovi (USA), and Chuzhou (China) are valorized, thanks to local partnerships.

Making better use of electricity

By constantly improving its processes, our Thailand site reduced its electrical consumption per ton of finished product by 15% in 2023 versus 2022.

Taking action for our communities

To bring our commitment to life at every layer of the organization, we've created an internal network of sustainability ambassadors at the site level, to act as the ears and voice of sustainability and demonstrate the importance of taking action.

Here are some examples!

Collecting waste to protect land and water

Sustainability ambassadors in Argentina, Thailand, and France organize regular waste collection outings to help protect the local environment.

Recycling plastic to reduce pollution

Concerned by plastic pollution that can badly damage mangrove ecosystems in Thailand, our Thai team has partnered with the Second Life Project to collect and recycle local plastic waste that would otherwise pollute the ocean. This also helps reduce the amount of plastic generated by the value chain.

Feeding pets to help ease the burden

Our teams in Canada, Thailand, France, and USA regularly organized kibble donations to sustain pet shelters and disadvantaged pet owners.

Close-up of a young brunette woman with bangs and headphones, holding a cat and looking at her phone, near a window

Be part of the journey

Suppliers, customers, Symrise – we are all part of the same ecosystem.
Our eco-design matrix is one powerful tool to help meet environmental challenges, and we know of many other levers to pull!

We would be happy to have your partnership in meeting these challenges. Let’s work together!
 

Contact us

Find out more about our sustainability commitment

Read more

Climate change

See how Symrise Pet Food is tackling this issue

Read more

Our product life cycle

Learn about our role in the Circular Economy

Contact us